Jef: you got it! This is Carleton street at Shattuck . . so Rpwalk was close, but you were closer. Congratulations on being this week’s winner!

Mary

Yes, I certainly know where that hideous eyesore is – it’s about 4 blocks from my home, and I walk past it frequently. I wish that the City would take that property by eminent domain and turn it into something useful.

Guest

This property is owned by my former landlord Reza Valiyee. I made the mistake of renting from Reza while in college; the price was right, but the property was derelict, and Reza seemed much more concern in working on his perpetual motion machine (I wish I were kidding), than in keeping his properties up to liveable standards.

The Daily Planet ran an article about Reza a few years back. In the article, they mention this lot, and how Reza is holding out on developing this lot because he believes BART will purchase the property from him to build a new station. If there’s one thing I learned about Reza while being his tenant, is that he’s committed to his convictions, so don’t expect to see this lot developed any time soon.

Foo

A perpetual motion machine? Yowza, where do I invest?

Greg

There is one problem with Mr. Valiyee’s invention of a perpetual motion machine:

It renders BART an anachronistic relic of an era without limitless energy.

As you can see, this results in a stalemate. Mr. Valiyee can’t release this invention to the world without diminishing the value of his property at Shattuck and Carleton and BART won’t build the station they so covet at that site under the specter of assured obsolescence the moment they sign the papers.

Yes, I realize perpetual motion may seem lucrative enough to warrant taking the hit on this one insignificant property, but a real estate empire on the scale of Mr. Valiyee’s is not something you build and maintain without some shrewd business skills (and a complicit local government unwilling to enforce its own laws).

the Deer

Ok, Alright, I’m getting my camera out! and my walking shoes!

Anonymous

You win.

guest

Doesn’t Berkeley have building codes that are supposed to prevent, you know, everything in that photo?

Really, rotting plywood being held up by what looks like some kind of hinged sign-hangers, holding back a massive pile of garbage completely filling a second floor with open-air windows? If you paint the rotting plywood closest to the open non-windows green, that makes it ok?